And, DosBox can convert joystick commands to keyboard commands, and you can use joysticks more easily that way sometimes, just mapping joystick to game key commands using the DosBox Mapper (F1).

You plug it in, calibrate it in OS, run dosbox, start your game, if *IF* the game supports a joystick it will work in dosbox. Never tested this but could work. Maybe you'll need to enable joystick in the game options, or not, depends on the game.

For example:Corncob3D auto detects a joystick.Keen 4 doesn't, you need to enable it in the game config panel.